If they
have money in their lean purses, be sure they have a friend to share it.
What innocent gaiety, what jovial suppers on threadbare cloths, and
wonderful songs after; what pathos, merriment, humour does not a man
enjoy who frequents their company! Mr. Clive Newcome, who has long since
shaved his beard, who has become a family man, and has seen the world in
a thousand different phases, avers that his life as an art-student at
home and abroad was the pleasantest part of his whole existence. It may
not be more amusing in the telling than the chronicle of a feast, or the
accurate report of two lovers' conversation; but the biographer, having
brought his hero to the period of his life, is bound to relate it, before
passing to other occurrences which are to be narrated in their turn.
We may be sure the boy had many conversations with his affectionate
guardian as to the profession which he should follow. As regarded
mathematical and classical learning, the elder Newcome was forced to
admit, that out of every hundred boys, there were fifty as clever as his
own, and at least fifty more industrious; the army in time of peace
Colonel Newcome thought a bad trade for a young fellow so fond of ease
and pleasure as his son: his delight in the pencil was manifest to all.
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